Depth of maststep?

Darryl Whetter

New Member
Hi Everyone,
How deep is the maststep on a Laser?
Of course only after I sold my boat am I writing a personal essay about sailing it.
Also, does anyone know if boats before the Laser had used a maststep and a removable mast or was that the game-changing revolution of Kirby's "million-dollar doodle"?
Thanks,
DW
 

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Without having a boat at hand for measuring right now, I'd say 35 centimetres, maybe a bit more. I remember measuring the deepest part of the hull (someone wanted to know if it'd fit through a doorway :D ); that is in front of the mast and about 38 cm.

does anyone know if boats before the Laser had used a maststep and a removable mast
If you mean just unstayed, then the Finn was some 20 years ahead (and that was copied off the Swedish sailing canoes).
If you mean an unadjustable and watertight mast step, then the Sunfish did that earlier.
If you mean halyardless, then I think the Laser was the first of its kind.

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Also, does anyone know if boats before the Laser had used a maststep and a removable mast or was that the game-changing revolution of Kirby's "million-dollar doodle"?
Thanks,
DW
Well, there is no doubt the Sailfish beat Kirby to the removeable mast without stays about 20 years prior to the Laser, and there may well have been boats like that before the Sailfish. And by the time the Laser came around there was the Sunfish and a bunch of clones set up the same way.
 
There were a number of boats around before the Laser which had unstayed masts with sleeved sails without halyards.

Just off the top of my head, in the UK, there was the Minisail and the Bonito, both designed in the late 50s or early 60s and in the US there was the Banshee which Wikipedia tells me was designed and built in 1969, so probably just before the Laser. And I would very surprised if the International Moths didn't experiment with unstayed, sleeved masts and sails.


The photos are from "Sailing Dinghies of the World" by Percy W Blandford - Published 1973
 

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